What is the ideal way to raise a world class athlete? 

In China and Russia, budding gymnasts leave home at five-years-old and spend most of their lives in intense training schools.  No doubt the training pays off, many of them indeed becoming world class, but at what cost to their childhood?

In the UK, England particularly, talented footballers are fast-tracked to the big time from as early as 10 or 11, signing up to a big club and practically living and breathing football for the rest of their career, for the one in 10 that are fortunate enough to make it.  But at what cost to their education?  Schooling is available, but the opportunities to progress beyond basic qualifications are limited. 

Two decades ago in East Germany, top performing athletes were quite literally ‘built’ thanks to a cocktail of illegal, performance enhancing drugs.  Sure enough, it paid off, delivering many Olympic medals to the athletes involved.  But at what cost to their health?

In Scotland, Euan Burton did things differently.  He has been the top British judo player in his weight category for seven years, and in that time has won several medals at world and European level, and competed in the Beijing Olympics. 

His pathway to the elite end of international sport was much more relaxed than the intense athlete farming described above.  For Euan, much of his success is attributed simply to having supportive, enthusiastic parents, a little brother, and an enjoyment of sport and the outdoors.

“I grew up just outside Edinburgh in a small village called Pencaitland in East Lothian,” Euan tells In The Winning Zone at the Edinburgh University Centre for Sport and Exercise, where he trains and receives physiotherapy. 

“It’s a really nice area to grow up, in the countryside. It was great just running and kicking about in fields. I have a little brother that is 2 ½ years younger than me – a good enough age that we can still be competitive with each other.  We are always racing each other up and down the streets, messing about or playing football.

“In the village there were a lot of kids that were all very similar ages.  So I had a load of good friends that were close and because you lived in a village there isn’t a huge amount of things to do so we were always kicking about playing football and playing in the woods.”

Euan believes that this kind of lifestyle in his childhood was essential to his eventual rise to stardom in judo.

“When you are always out and being active, it is really good fun!  When you have that kind of experience, it probably subconsciously leaves you thinking that you wouldn’t mind doing something that is good fun for the rest of your life and for your career.

“I don’t come across as that competitive a person unless I am actually competing in something, but I am dead competitive and I think that comes from having a brother of the same sort of age.  We were constantly competing and I never wanted him to be better than me at anything. I always wanted to be better. I am sure that probably had a part to play.”

Asides from the running around, Euan started doing judo at six-years-old.  Not setting out to become a world-beater, but just for fun. 

“I remember my dad doing karate and thinking that because my dad did it then I wanted to do it.  But he had done it for long enough to have seen kids coming through and didn’t see it as being that great a sport for kids.  In karate, it was very strict, all lines of people doing moves, very regimented.

“Judo on the other hand is pretty much just wrestling.  It is basically getting a hold of another kid and wrestling about with them, which is a much more social thing and you can connect with other people.

“I am not sure how much my mum and dad thought about it but I think they chose Judo to see if it was something that I liked because it was something were you had to interact with other kids and you didn’t really have a choice.  You couldn’t stand a do stuff on your own in Judo.  You had to have a partner and that initially means that you have to build up some sort of friendship or relationship with other kids.”

Euan had a talent for judo, but he was never the best, which he believes also helped him progress.  Much like Beijing Olympic hero Chris Hoy, Euan thinks that being made to work that little bit harder for success as a youngster has made him more determined and resilient as a senior fighter.

“I think definitely if you are going to be serious about a sport then it’s not the best thing to be completely successful straight away from the beginning. A lot of the time, in loads of sports with people who win too easily as kids, they don’t go on to become the best athletes in later life because they have never had to particularly try very hard. 

“But I think I little bit of success is good.  Everyone likes winning, especially when you are a kid, winning a trophy is amazing. I also remember getting quite a few silver and bronze medals.  I think that was big for me because I wasn’t winning everything, so I still wanted to get better, and I got something from it even though I didn’t win.”

Fast forward to the present day, and it has been a frustrating twelve months for Euan, a year that had promised much but delivered little.  His resilience, developed in childhood, has come into play a lot this year.

In late 2007, Burton was riding on the crest of a wave.  He had taken bronze medals at both the world and European championships.  And he made the headlines in a big way when he was unveiled as one of the BOA Performance Director Clive Woodward’s ‘pilot projects’ for his world class podium programme, as GB scaled up its bid for home soil Olympic success in 2012.

Burton was to be exposed to an unprecedented level of support and preparation, with the first step to London glory being a medal in Beijing.  Unfortunately, a quarter final defeat, followed by a loss in the repechage (a ‘second chance’ for early round losers,) meant his Beijing dream was over in the space of a few hours.

Overall, Euan finished 7th, equivalent to making an Olympic swimming final or a 100m sprint on the athletics track.  Not bad for his first Olympics, all things considered.

Since then, Euan has struggled with injury.  He made his big stage comeback last month at the European Championships, where he was beaten in the second round.

But that is just the view from the outside.  Speaking to Burton in person, a very different picture is painted, not just of him, but of his sport. 

It is very easy to regard athletes as machines, as appliances that should be judged solely on their results and performances.  Burton was subject to this thanks to his high-profile association with Woodward’s programme. 

But, that’s just the way it goes in judo, as Euan explains: “I am clever enough now and know the sport of Judo well enough to know that you can be the best in the world, but there is always someone else who could beat you.  It is impossible to be unbeatable.

“In Beijing I knew that I had done everything that I could do. I knew that I had done as much preparation as I possibly could and knew that I was as well physically and mentally prepared as I could be. 

“In truth, I didn’t fight badly.  I didn’t fight the best I have ever fought in my life but that wasn’t down to how I had prepared, that was just down to Judo.  Because it is a weight categorized sport, you are all similar weights but if you look at a lot of fighters, you will see that their body sizes are so different. You have left handed guys who are 5ft 2in and are the same weight as me but I am a right handed and I am 6ft.  

“It is just like fighting someone that isn’t even the same species as you. That might really suit me or be terrible for me.  You often find some of the best left handed fighters in the world won’t lose to any of the best right handers but as soon as they come up against a decent left hander then they don’t know what to do.  They literally can’t win the fight.”

But it’s only 2009.  Beijing was Euan’s first taste of an Olympiad in action.  And, as he has stated, often a little bit of failure is the best thing in a quest to find eventual success.  Roll on London.

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